Facebook Might Be Shut Down in Russia

LinkedIn cannot operate in Russia, the reason being the internet company violated a Russian law that directs all internet firm keep their Russian clients’ personal data within the Russian territories. Facebook is not immune to this law, as it faces a possible ban from the country if they don’t comply by 2018.

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin passed the law in 2014 and became operational in September 2015. Companies like Alibaba group holdings, Alphabets Inc. and Google complied with the directive immediately. Other firms like Twitter Inc. requested some additional time to allow them to do a feasibility study of the arrangement.

The threat that Facebook might suffer the same fate as LinkedIn was announced on Tuesday by the Russia’s communication spokesperson, Roskomnadzor. The watchdog issued a directive last November to have LinkedIn access to Russia blocked. The networking firm had been found guilty of not complying with the directive to store Russian personal data within Russia.

That case served as a clear example of how foreign internet firms should operate in Russia, a case ruling that got other networking companies running up and down to comply with the law.

Russia is trying to come up with a way that it’ll be independent of foreign firms for technology, especially this time that the country is in unhealthy political imbalance with the United States. For some time now, Russia has been working a new social messenger other than WhatsApp. The app is supposed to be used for government communication services. It should also be independent of foreign communication nodes.

Recently Facebook testified in the US against Russia for having fake Russian accounts. Roughly $100,000 was raised towards the America’s presidential elections using the said Facebook accounts.